This week in Army Times' print edition: Women in combat jobs … Army to spy on your keystrokes… The next pay raise

The Army will start placing women in as many as 14,000 combat-related jobs starting this month, placing women in 37 battalions across nine brigade combat teams.

The service is opening up six military occupational specialties to women for the first time.

This is a change in policy for the Defense Department, say officials who acknowledge the role women have played in the most recent wars. More than 135,000 female soldiers have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, earning more than 400 valor awards, said an Army personnel official. More than 77 have been killed in action, he said.

To find out more about the units, jobs and ranks of women in combat-related roles, see this week’s Army Times.

Pay raise gets first OK

Budget cuts are coming, but soldiers can look for a pay raise in the next defense budget.

A House panel has approved a 1.7 percent military pay raise during work in late April on the 2013 budget. The panel also worked on blocking cuts in troop levels and military benefits.

See the chart showing what soldiers would make with the proposed pay raise, plus more on what is ahead for soldiers’ pay and benefits, in this week’s Army Times, on newsstands now.

Keystroke crackdown: Army wants to monitor what soldiers do at their computers

The Army is looking for ways to watch what every soldier is doing on his or her Army computer, to keep an eye on keystrokes, downloads and Web searches.

The idea is to find “insider threats” before they can do damage – like the alleged Wikileaks data dump of classified documents. A soldier stands accused of leaking them.

The Army will soon be shopping for software than can detect and record what you do on your computer. It might be a tough job. The Army has more than 900,000 people on its computers.

For details on what you need to know, see Army Times.

Online: Check out the fitness blog

The weather’s getting warmer, and people are more ready than ever to get outside and get fit. The blog PT 365, the Army Times’ official fitness blog, can help you get moving. See the latest on fitness events, products and workout tips from military athletes on the blog at http://blogs.militarytimes.com/pt365/.